Billboard Vandalized to Say "Kill the NRA". NRA Panics, Conservatives Sound Stupid

[Fallout]

Does your ass ever get tired from all the talking it does for you? Seriously, you're not even from the United States and you seem to think you have a valuable opinion about the state of affairs here. I'm not saying that it's impossible to be non-American and have valuable insight regarding US politics, but you don't have it. Your opinion is misinformed and shit.

Donald Trump is not coming off as more nuanced than his critics. His approval rating has been more negative than positive for over a year now, and the only reason it's not as much in the shitter as it used to be is because he's been out of the public eye for the last couple of weeks. That's right, the goddamn PRESIDENT OF THE US is doing everything he can to hide from the public. DJT's only public presence is his Twitter account, which was mocked this past week around the world.

And what other side of the coin are you talking about? Gun control advocates? There's no left-wing equivalent to the NRA in America, and if someone has led you to believe that then you are horribly mistaken.

Children we just gunned down senselessly and you come in here talking about about shit you don't know anything about. Stay in your lane, dumb fuck.

This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. You're a good guy J, but you're biased about this kind of stuff. I hate being a dick to people I like in the fear that what I'll say will be taken the wrong way, but I think I can at least offer you my honest perspective.

Firstly, we have a thread detailing all of the dumb stuff Trump does on a daily basis. We have a mainstream media that loves to sensationalise Trump because it serves their bottom line: to get clicks and mainstream approval. We've got people (not on this forum thankfully) making comparisons to fictional villains and fascist dictators. The outrage over Trump is quite simply, a maelstrom of emotions, and that's the key word: emotion. Many of Trump's critics aren't looking at this from a place of pragmatism, they're kneejerking with their personal opinions without thinking about why Trump does what he does. There's a reason why there's such an aversion to thing such as social justice, why the left-wing is losing popularity, and why Trump got elected in the first place, all of which are objectively true, and I'll be interested in hearing your personal opinions on them.

The other side of the coin I was mostly referring to in my OP were social justice warriors. Now, this is a term misused by Trump supporters (which I am not FYI), so I'll explain what I mean by this: A social justice warrior is a social justice advocate who cannot see any humanity in anyone who may disagree with their perceptions, they are the self-righteous bigots they accuse others of being. To be clear, I'm not accusing you or anyone else here of being one, I'm just outlining that people like this exist.

And for the record, I support gun control. I've even had debates with right-wing libertarian friends with mine from the US, and I strongly support the laws we have in Britain, even though I acknowledge Britain and the US have very different gun cultures. In fact, building new schools next to police stations to deter potential school shooters, and placing a restriction on maximum magazine size is a great place to start in my opinion.

[Yaz]

If I am being completely honest, I think the harm that can be done by the radical right is much much worse than the potential harm the radical left could do. I mean ask yourself, what is worse? Admitting to sexual assault or wanting people to be more politically correct?

But I just caused the WZ Apocalypse by calling someone fucking retarded so what do I know?

[HBK-aholic]

How privileged of a human do you have to be to say we shouldn't talk about the despicable shit Trump does, and that sexual assault (which kissing and grabbing someones vagina without consent absolutely is, btw) and mocking the disabled is a 'little thing'?

Absolutely boggles my mind. I mean, I'm totally glad you aren't in a position that you have to worry about those things, but as a female immigrant Trumps policies and actions affect me. And yet I'm aware I'm one of the lucky ones. So yes, I will talk about it. Yes, I will make the conversation about how awful that is. Yes, I will #Resist.

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak outâ??
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak outâ??
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak outâ??
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for meâ??and there was no one left to speak for me.

[JGlass]

The radical left has almost no presence in the US, not like the radical right does, and it's exactly because they have Trump as President normalizing what they do. There's never been a president that said there are fine people that are neo-Nazis before. We've never had a president that bragged about sexually assaulting women, and we've never had a president (at least to my knowledge) that has called directly for violence against the media. You're right that his detractors react to him emotionally, but that's because his supporters also react to him emotionally. Very few Trump supporters are behind him because of his politics, they're behind him because of what he represents: a white guy looking out for white guys. And it's very easy for you, as a white man, to say that we should avoid an emotional reaction because you have very little to lose from the power swinging back to the far right, but you know who does have a lot to lose? Women. People of color. Non-heterosexual, non-cis people. People with disabilities. People that aren't Christian. A lot of fucking people. It's important to express outrage at the ideas this president represents so we can avoid them from taking hold. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but Americans are willing to accept just about anything as the new normal: we accept that massacres happen every other week, we accept that our medical system is garbage, and we accept that we have a clown for president.

And I know what a social justice warrior is, you condescending fuck. What I don't understand is how you can compare social justice warriors to the NRA. One is a group of individuals that aggressively, perhaps overaggressively, pursue social equality for marginalized groups for no personal gain other than emotional gratification. The other is a massive organization that pulls in nearly half a billion dollars a year in revenue and lobbies congress to do NOTHING when guns continue to be responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans every year, actively creates fear-based propaganda against their critics, and values the right to own a gun over the right for children to live in a safe society.

This is why I'm not going to continue arguing with you: you refuse to admit that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I don't dislike you because we have a difference of opinion, I invite people with different opinion to talk to me, but they better be informed. You are not informed, you have no idea what you're talking about but pretend that you do, and when it becomes readily apparent to everyone except you that you have no idea you double down and attempt to explain yourself in a condescending manner only to further reveal that, say it with me now, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.

Just to illustrate this point, let me pick apart your, "Build new schools by police stations," idea.

1) What about the hundreds of thousands of schools that already exist that aren't by police stations?
2) What about schools in cities where real estate is expensive and you can't always put a building exactly where you want it?
3) Is next to a police station really the best place to put a school, where sirens will blare every time someone calls 911, where criminals are brought for questioning and detention?
4) How are they supposed to fit an elementary school, a middle school, and a high school next to one police station?
5) Why would we build schools next to police stations when we could just ban automatic weapons and save millions of tax payer dollars?



In summation: your ideas are stupid, I don't like you, and you don't know what you're talking about. Please stick to discussing things you do know about, which again, clearly does not include this.

[Fallout]

If I am being completely honest, I think the harm that can be done by the radical right is much much worse than the potential harm the radical left could do. I mean ask yourself, what is worse? Admitting to sexual assault or wanting people to be more politically correct?

But I just caused the WZ Apocalypse by calling someone fucking retarded so what do I know?

That's a fair assessment. Right-wing extremists are more likely to shoot up a place (look at Andrers Breivik, Dylann Roof and Thomas Mair), but the left-wing extremists are more than capable of violence as well, such as burning six police officers in France, one to the extent he received third-degree burns. Left-wing extremists have also attempted to use institutionalised power against their political opponents, ranging from actual neo-Nazis and the alt-right, to centrists and even fellow left-wingers. Say what you will about right-wing extremists, but outside of edgelords on 4chan, everyone hates them and is right to have a negative perception of them. The same cannot be said for extremists on the left.

How privileged of a human do you have to be to say we shouldn't talk about the despicable shit Trump does, and that sexual assault (which kissing and grabbing someones vagina without consent absolutely is, btw) and mocking the disabled is a 'little thing'?

Absolutely boggles my mind. I mean, I'm totally glad you aren't in a position that you have to worry about those things, but as a female immigrant Trumps policies and actions affect me. And yet I'm aware I'm one of the lucky ones. So yes, I will talk about it. Yes, I will make the conversation about how awful that is. Yes, I will #Resist.

I'm speaking in terms of presentation, optics and PR here.

Trump's entire PR campaign was to be as bombastic as possible. You've probably heard the phrase "Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience". (I'm leaving myself open to a WITTY remark here, but whatever) Trump's entire strategy revolves around invoking that. His strategy was to dumb down the conversation to a point where he felt comfortable orating; he controlled the tempo of the US election and he controls the current political zeitgeist right now. If you sensationalise like CNN seems content on doing (to the point they were reporting and dedicating resources to a fucking truck blocking their view whilst Trump was golfing), you only make yourself look bad, and CNN went from perhaps my go-to American news source to an embarrassment on the same level of Fox News under Obama, and that's not even factoring in the CNN Blackmail debacle. Trump has very little to lose if he sensationalises everything; people know what they're going to get, and his supporters will stand by him no matter what. The zeitgeist however, is on his side, especially given the rise of criticism of social justice and a general right-wing resurgence across the western world. The right-wing has momentum, and the left needs to gain its credibility back. It will not get it back by doing exactly what Trump does in return. It will get it back through intelligent conversation and challenging Trump on the issues he doesn't fully grasp. And it will get it back, rather than just focusing on trashing the other side, by actually offering a clear, understandable and cogent message. Say what you will about Trump, but he offered people something new. To me, the line that killed Hillary Clinton's election bid dead in the water was "America is already great, because America is good" because it was essentially a giant middle finger to anyone who wasn't satisfied with their living environment (a lot of people, considering humanity's natural state is disatisfaction).

[Yaz]

To be frank, if someone sees dead children and their first thought is to run to social media and shout "but muh rights, muh guns" then yeah, I think I am going to question if they have a shred of humanity in them.

[Fallout]

To be frank, if someone sees dead children and their first thought is to run to social media and shout "but muh rights, muh guns" then yeah, I think I am going to question if they have a shred of humanity in them.

Those people aren't just completely retarded, they're pretty much sociopaths. People like Stefan Molyneux, Paul Joseph Watson, Steven Crowder and that group are cunts who get pleasure from trying to hurt their political opponents emotionally.

[A11]

The radical left has almost no presence in the US, not like the radical right does,

I refuse to believe this. The radical left has been the reason that Trump has risen to the presidency and why brexit won. I completely agree that trump is terrible but the radical left has been arrogant in the belief that they are morally right (they probably are right) but have not approached it the right way. People do not want to be told that they are wrong and have to change. And this is probably complete white privilege but if I want to make a joke among mates that is racist, homophobic or sexist I'm going to do it. But here's the thing I'm not going to do it in public or if someone that would be offended by the joke is around I wouldnt do it. But at the same time I'm also not going to treat someone differently because of their skin colour, beliefs or gender. Meanwhile the left continues to babble on starting movements that achieve nothing. E.g wearing black at the emmys, what did that achieve exactly?

[HBK-aholic]

E.g wearing black at the emmys, what did that achieve exactly?

Assuming you mean the Golden globes - the *point* was to raise awareness for #MeToo and #TimesUp, to show solidarity with those who have stood up to rampant sexual assault and harassment, and to protest gender inequality. It ACHIEVED exactly what it was supposed to - to get people talking about these issues that have been affecting (mostly) women for years.

I don't see what the problem is.

[A11]

Assuming you mean the Golden globes - the *point* was to raise awareness for #MeToo and #TimesUp, to show solidarity with those who have stood up to rampant sexual assault and harassment, and to protest gender inequality. It ACHIEVED exactly what it was supposed to - to get people talking about these issues that have been affecting (mostly) women for years.

I don't see what the problem is.

Fuck yeah awareness! We werent already aware of it. It's only dominated the news for the last month and been a running joke in hollywood forever. The problem is that this is what the left does, it shoves its message down your throat without actually changing anything. In melbourne we're getting pedestrian lights in a female silhouette because thats going to break down all the issues that females face. It doesnt achieve anything significant but yet all these activists don't give a shit because they've done something. Thats all anyone wants to do these days is make it look like they are doing shit